When I was at University all the boys played that game Diplomacy. You know, the one where you moved tanks and ships and men and made alliances in order to conquer Europe.
I feel that pb.com has become a bit like that of late. 75% of posts are boys with fake toys talking military strategies.
I know there's a real war going on, and it's devastating, but the armchair generals on here ain't gonna solve it.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Only if they bump off their parents. Average age when both your parents are dead is well into your 60s. I did the maths for you on this before using the ONS data.
Genuinely if anyone could give a Tory policy that actually helps people under 30 I’m all ears.
NMW and high personal allowances. Modern Apprenticeships.
Help to buy schemes for first time buyers.
As per my last post, the average age of first time buyers is now over 30.
Doesn't mean that it doesn't benefit some people under that age.
I worded the post I referred to carefully to point out the difference between the spirit and the letter of the question.
I mean, you could say that dishing out corrupt contracts to mates will probably benefit the son or daughter of one of the cronies, so hooray, someone under 30 benefits from that too... but is it really embracing the spirit of the question?
Few policies, other than the triple lock, which the government have at least temporarily given up on, are focused on one particular age group. Most, at least in theory, are intended to benefit us all. What I was trying to do was identify policies that are more likely to benefit the young than the old. I would not dispute for a second it is easier to do the reverse.
I honestly can't think of a single policy that this government has geared towards young people, it's a huge change from the Dave/George years who were pretty good at ensuring everyone shared in the proceeds of economic growth rather than just old people. The worst part is that working age people are being impoverished to shovel cash to old people, it's not even a case of older people benefiting more than young people, this is simply theft of economic gains from working age people to buy votes from old people.
The NI rise was technically progressive as a proportion of disposable income.
It's just the marginal utility of disposable income is much higher for people on lower incomes.
But that's looking at the income scale, not the old/young divide as old people don't pay NI on pension income. There's never been anything smart about stealing from Peter to pay Paul, that's what the government are doing, they are stealing from workers to purchase votes from retirees, there's simply no more to the NI rise than that.
You are obsessed with money , I could bet my shirt when you are a bit older you will be moaning and whing about tax on old people and how the young expect everyhting for nothing while pensioners are taxed to pay for it. You will never be happy as you only ever think about money.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Only if they bump off their parents. Average age when both your parents are dead is well into your 60s. I did the maths for you on this before using the ONS data.
Otherwise don't disagree much with the post.
but most kids of well off parents get money before parents death - either in drip feed or ways to get around paying care fees etc. Its not a meritocracy when the prime factor in how well off a generation is is not how much THEY EARN but how much they are given by parents
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Namely the header that "Many conservatives don’t think the 2020 election was stolen. But they believe democracy itself has betrayed America, by allowing the ‘wrong’ people to take charge"
Surely that was the case with the Democrats after the 2016 election?
Hmmm? I must have missed Hillary and the Dems storming the Capital Building sometime in January 2017.
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
This excerpt jumped out at me:
"Local social media imagery depicted new conscripts equipped with the Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle—which has not been produced since 1973 and was first produced in 1891."
I can't believe that the Russians would have run out of Kalashnikovs, so what do we make of this? Seems to be a particularly cruel and nihilistic move.
And much of their transport relies on the wheel, technology first produced in 2000 BC. Guns last forever if you keep the rust away, and there's nothing obsolete about a bolt action. So what is the problem?
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Malcolm of course is the living proof of a greedy boomer
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1505955060408324103 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are preparing to involve "Youth Army" minors aged 17-18 years in the Russia-Ukraine war, Defense Intelligence of Ukraine reports
Desperate.
The Ukrainian border agency said today that 400,000 Ukrainians had returned to the country since the start of the war, about 75-80% men, presumably mostly to help defend the country from the Russians.
The gap in willingness to fight is very large.
I'd be surprised if there are many in the Russian military who actually want to be fighting this war, but amongst the Ukrainian population they may not want to fight, but they sure as hell will do so to protect their people and country. This is not some far away war about an issue that ought to be resolvable diplomatically, this very existence of Ukraine rests on the outcome. Other than your own immediate safety there really isn't much greater motivation.
For most people, it would be a case of wanting to do what you can. You would try and help. If you regard the place as home, and are not implacably opposed to the government, you would go back to defend it - you wouldn't want to be a refugee somewhere else. This is how I would feel about Britain, if it were under attack in some way. I can't imagine being able to live with myself knowing that other people are doing the fighting on my behalf.
Interesting the gender dimension to all of this. Suddenly it is just accepted that 'men go to fight in the war'. I've never seen this idea questioned in the discussion about Ukraine. I've been suggesting to my wife that I think that gender norms are so deeply entrenched in human psychology that they can never be truly deconstructed.
Presumably some women are fighting, but I guess the Ukrainian armed forces have been remiss filling out their equalities spreadsheets to give us precise numbers. No doubt there is someone out there in a dark corner of the internet stating that the real crime here is the perpetuation of patriarchial hierarchical norms, and another glorifying this return to Conan style masculine ideals.
A large number of women are fighting; Ukraine's armed forces had changed dramatically in this respect over the last decade or so, having around 15% women (compared with around 11% in the UK).
Not something I'm accustomed to doing but well said Jezza, and gammons girfuy.
i think Iran owes her one more
A point which doesn't look any brighter no matter how often it gets made. Iran beat her up, we lent them the baseball bat. An incredibly bad fit of an analogy but enough to make the point that blame can be shared. And more people here have a vote in the UK than Iran.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
One of the interesting things about moving to New York is trying to get my head around housing costs.
Manhattan is of course grossly expensive and more than comparable with London Zones 1 & 2.
But you don’t need to go out soooo much before prices drop away rapidly. For example, in Montclair, New Jersey - a prosperous and vaguely arty commuter town, 20 miles outside Manhattan - you can get a very nice 2000 or 3000 sq ft house for circa £500k.
Try doing that in Tunbridge Wells.
Americans earn more, are taxed less, and have lower housing (and energy) costs.
The average Amercian has a standard of living well above that of the average Briton.
The downside to the USA is that it's a terrible place to be poor.
Russian military comms are having problems because some of the divisional and corps level secure kit doesn't work very well and as I posted a while back, there are reports someone is heavily disrupting battlefield comms. The Russians have their suspicions about who but its a short list.
These comms issues are put forward one of the reasons why a such a number of senior officers have been killed. they have been forced to go to the front lines to get a picture of what is going on and direct their troops because the comms have been a mess.
The other aspect - which I hadn’t fully appreciated - is the Russians don’t devolved battlefield autonomy to their junior commanders. They aren’t trained to take the initiative. Which means that unless the senior officers go forward then nothing happens
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
I suspect this is a sign that Putin is very reluctant to redeploy any genuine additional forces to Ukraine, perhaps because he's afraid of the consequences for political stability in Russia.
I think that's spot on (and @BigRich made the same observation).
It shows the trouble Putin is in: he doesn't have the troops to bring Ukraine to heel without moving them from other parts of his Empire. But if he does that, he risks rebellions or other demonstrations that he will be unable to suppress.
And so he struggles in Ukraine, and his strength is sapped, and the world risks a nuclear or chemical attack in a European country, because Putin sees that as the only way to hold on to power.
He certainly doesn't have the kind of resources Stalin has. The Soviets could take 1.2 m casualties, while still winning the battle for the West Bank of the Dneiper.
Russian military comms are having problems because some of the divisional and corps level secure kit doesn't work very well and as I posted a while back, there are reports someone is heavily disrupting battlefield comms. The Russians have their suspicions about who but its a short list.
These comms issues are put forward one of the reasons why a such a number of senior officers have been killed. they have been forced to go to the front lines to get a picture of what is going on and direct their troops because the comms have been a mess.
The other aspect - which I hadn’t fully appreciated - is the Russians don’t devolved battlefield autonomy to their junior commanders. They aren’t trained to take the initiative. Which means that unless the senior officers go forward then nothing happens
Their rations even look fucking grim to me and I went to boarding school in Yorkshire.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
One of the interesting things about moving to New York is trying to get my head around housing costs.
Manhattan is of course grossly expensive and more than comparable with London Zones 1 & 2.
But you don’t need to go out soooo much before prices drop away rapidly. For example, in Montclair, New Jersey - a prosperous and vaguely arty commuter town, 20 miles outside Manhattan - you can get a very nice 2000 or 3000 sq ft house for circa £500k.
Try doing that in Tunbridge Wells.
Americans earn more, are taxed less, and have lower housing (and energy) costs.
I imagine the NJ zipcode has a big impact on that. Also, direct comparisons on house sizes aren't really fair, as US homes in the suburbs are just bigger.
Also, it depends which way you go from London. But, say Welwyn Garden City, 25 miles from central London. Here is quick random search, you can get a decent house for £500k.
I imagine if you go for say Sussex rather than Surrey, is a bit like NJ vs NY state.
Upstate NY is where is most surprising. Cold Spring type way is really very very nice and properties aren't crazy money and it is still easy to get into the city.
That house is pokey as hell, glazed with UVC, and you can barely swing a cat in the back garden.
It kind of proves my point.
You can get this - looks around 3000 sq ft - for literally less than the one you showed me.
A large number of women are fighting; Ukraine's armed forces had changed dramatically in this respect over the last decade or so, having around 15% women (compared with around 11% in the UK).
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
One of the interesting things about moving to New York is trying to get my head around housing costs.
Manhattan is of course grossly expensive and more than comparable with London Zones 1 & 2.
But you don’t need to go out soooo much before prices drop away rapidly. For example, in Montclair, New Jersey - a prosperous and vaguely arty commuter town, 20 miles outside Manhattan - you can get a very nice 2000 or 3000 sq ft house for circa £500k.
Try doing that in Tunbridge Wells.
Americans earn more, are taxed less, and have lower housing (and energy) costs.
I imagine the NJ zipcode has a big impact on that. Also, direct comparisons on house sizes aren't really fair, as US homes in the suburbs are just bigger.
Also, it depends which way you go from London. But, say Welwyn Garden City, 25 miles from central London. Here is quick random search, you can get a decent house for £500k.
I imagine if you go for say Sussex rather than Surrey, is a bit like NJ vs NY state.
Upstate NY is where is most surprising. Cold Spring type way is really very very nice and properties aren't crazy money and it is still easy to get into the city.
That house is pokey as hell, glazed with UVC, and you can barely swing a cat in the back garden.
It kind of proves my point.
You can get this - looks around 3000 sq ft - for literally less than the one you showed me.
The two houses posted illustrate @Gardenwalker point to a comical degree. The lot size of the US house is over 9000 sq feet ! The obsession in the UK with numbers of bedrooms rather than floor area is probably to blame. Though property tax on the US house is almost 20k a year
There’s just a lot more land in the US. We are a small and densely populated island.
Macron remains well ahead of his pre-Ukraine levels of 24-25% first round support. A correction was always likely but Macron seems to be suffering from the effect of high pump prices and push-back to his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 2/
Despite their Putin-fellow-travelling baggage, Marine Le Pen (up to 20% in the Elabe poll) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (up to 15%) are rising on cost of living concerns. Zemmour and Pécresse still floundering 3/
If Nazanin were to decide that she just absolutely had to go back to Iran on some worthy mercy mission, how much should we pay to secure her re-release?
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
I suspect this is a sign that Putin is very reluctant to redeploy any genuine additional forces to Ukraine, perhaps because he's afraid of the consequences for political stability in Russia.
I think that's spot on (and @BigRich made the same observation).
It shows the trouble Putin is in: he doesn't have the troops to bring Ukraine to heel without moving them from other parts of his Empire. But if he does that, he risks rebellions or other demonstrations that he will be unable to suppress.
And so he struggles in Ukraine, and his strength is sapped, and the world risks a nuclear or chemical attack in a European country, because Putin sees that as the only way to hold on to power.
He certainly doesn't have the kind of resources Stalin has. The Soviets could take 1.2 m casualties, while still winning the battle for the West Bank of the Dneiper.
Putin could lose Belorussia if he is not careful with his constant attempts to drag them into this.
Stuff coming out re Australian PM Mr Morrison in polling and focus groups. I was struck by this, given the religious fervour with which PBTories adore calling Mr Johnson 'Boris' as if he were their lover:
'Despite such virulent shortcomings we should remain cautious about concluding that the PM is sunk. The “ScoMo” brand that he lovingly created before the 2019 election still delivers among those sections of the electorate who view politics from the corner of their eye.
A real tell in focus groups that I have observed is whether the participant refers to Morrison as ScoMo. Where they do the brand provides a protective shield around him; while they recognise his missteps, they are far more prepared to forgive him. After all, “you can’t blame ScoMo for the pandemic”.'
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Russian military comms are having problems because some of the divisional and corps level secure kit doesn't work very well and as I posted a while back, there are reports someone is heavily disrupting battlefield comms. The Russians have their suspicions about who but its a short list.
These comms issues are put forward one of the reasons why a such a number of senior officers have been killed. they have been forced to go to the front lines to get a picture of what is going on and direct their troops because the comms have been a mess.
The other aspect - which I hadn’t fully appreciated - is the Russians don’t devolved battlefield autonomy to their junior commanders. They aren’t trained to take the initiative. Which means that unless the senior officers go forward then nothing happens
And we know from their comms when that is happening. We tell Ukraine; Ukraine kills them.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
One of the interesting things about moving to New York is trying to get my head around housing costs.
Manhattan is of course grossly expensive and more than comparable with London Zones 1 & 2.
But you don’t need to go out soooo much before prices drop away rapidly. For example, in Montclair, New Jersey - a prosperous and vaguely arty commuter town, 20 miles outside Manhattan - you can get a very nice 2000 or 3000 sq ft house for circa £500k.
Try doing that in Tunbridge Wells.
Americans earn more, are taxed less, and have lower housing (and energy) costs.
The average Amercian has a standard of living well above that of the average Briton.
The downside to the USA is that it's a terrible place to be poor.
Only so long as they don't pick up a serious illness or chronic condition during their life.
Russian military comms are having problems because some of the divisional and corps level secure kit doesn't work very well and as I posted a while back, there are reports someone is heavily disrupting battlefield comms. The Russians have their suspicions about who but its a short list.
These comms issues are put forward one of the reasons why a such a number of senior officers have been killed. they have been forced to go to the front lines to get a picture of what is going on and direct their troops because the comms have been a mess.
The other aspect - which I hadn’t fully appreciated - is the Russians don’t devolved battlefield autonomy to their junior commanders. They aren’t trained to take the initiative. Which means that unless the senior officers go forward then nothing happens
Their rations even look fucking grim to me and I went to boarding school in Yorkshire.
Rations? You had rations when you were a lad? Luxury!
I wouldn’t call boil in the bag sausage in a canteen anything like food
Genuinely if anyone could give a Tory policy that actually helps people under 30 I’m all ears.
NMW and high personal allowances. Modern Apprenticeships.
Help to buy schemes for first time buyers.
As per my last post, the average age of first time buyers is now over 30.
Doesn't mean that it doesn't benefit some people under that age.
Not much of a rallying cry to the under 30s "If you're lucky, you might get some benefits by default of our focus on others".
Like older people had to do the young need to stop whining and get out and work. Country is full of softies wanting it all for nothing.
The labour force participation rate for 25-34 year olds is about as high as it ever has been.
Why are they whinging then , they have never had it so good , they should have experienced the 70's and 80's when times were really tough for young people. Whining softies wanting it all for nothing.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
That may be but there is high and there is high. Up here you will get a nice detached house for the price of a London shoebox and if you are lucky to have London wages it makes even better and even if not you can still live much better.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Only if they bump off their parents. Average age when both your parents are dead is well into your 60s. I did the maths for you on this before using the ONS data.
Otherwise don't disagree much with the post.
but most kids of well off parents get money before parents death - either in drip feed or ways to get around paying care fees etc. Its not a meritocracy when the prime factor in how well off a generation is is not how much THEY EARN but how much they are given by parents
Not sure that is true especially for those not well off in the south, but that is not the point l was making anyway. Just pointing out you don't inherit generally in 40s and 50s. Nothing else.
@HYUFD to have children you have to survive till about 30 (in my case 41). So life expectancy of parents is greater than from birth. Also to inherit both parents have to die so you have to work out the life expectancy of of the older of 2 people which again is larger. That figure is well into the 90s (in my case 96 and still going strong). Subtract 30 from that figure and you get 60+
I accept you will say parents will help children before they die. That may or may not be true. Less so for those in the south who aren't wealthy.
"Boris Johnson "desperate" to go to Ukraine - senior Conservative
The Tory chairman, Oliver Dowden, has claimed British prime minister Boris Johnson is “desperate to go to Ukraine” and has a “real emotional connection” with the Ukrainian people."
Boris being Boris, I suppose. There is no situation so tragic that the man will not make it about him and his self-promotion.
In fairness it is Churchillian - Churchill wanted to be on the beaches at D-Day and it took a direct order from the King to stop him. Both are/were terrible ideas....
Was it a direct order?
I thought it was a case of Eisenhower telling King George VI about Churchill's plans to be in Normandy on D-Day and the King telling Churchill that if Churchill went to Normandy on D-Day then so would he (so to stop Churchill going.)
That led to Churchill having the same fears as Eisenhower, one lucky German attack and the King dies on D-Day then no matter how much of a success D-Day was the death of the King/Churchill would overshadow the invasion and possibly a morale destroying event which could impact the outcome of the war, so Churchill decided not go.
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
This excerpt jumped out at me:
"Local social media imagery depicted new conscripts equipped with the Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle—which has not been produced since 1973 and was first produced in 1891."
I can't believe that the Russians would have run out of Kalashnikovs, so what do we make of this? Seems to be a particularly cruel and nihilistic move.
Nowt wrong with the MN. There is a lot of stopping power in that 7.62x53 round. It's still in production in Finland and there must be thousands still in use all over the world. Possibly used as a designated marksman weapon as the British forces do with the 7.62 L129.
There could be quite a few huntsman in that 55-65 bracket they are calling up. They might even have volunteered for that duty.
And if you have enough chucking them that you don't mind die as they do, Zulu spears are still effective. Not what you want on the social media feed though.
Genuinely if anyone could give a Tory policy that actually helps people under 30 I’m all ears.
NMW and high personal allowances. Modern Apprenticeships.
Help to buy schemes for first time buyers.
As per my last post, the average age of first time buyers is now over 30.
Doesn't mean that it doesn't benefit some people under that age.
Not much of a rallying cry to the under 30s "If you're lucky, you might get some benefits by default of our focus on others".
Like older people had to do the young need to stop whining and get out and work. Country is full of softies wanting it all for nothing.
The labour force participation rate for 25-34 year olds is about as high as it ever has been.
Why are they whinging then , they have never had it so good , they should have experienced the 70's and 80's when times were really tough for young people. Whining softies wanting it all for nothing.
Basically because rents/mortgages have increased far faster than wages. That's pretty much it.
Do you think we should have paid for an 8.3% increase in the state pension, as the triple lock would have dictated? Or are you happy with 3.1% increase (CPI to September 21)?
There has been talk for some time about Putin's off ramps over Ukraine, his failure to have any in the run up to this and what the possible off ramps are now.
The collective West needs to give Putin no such route. He either creates it through military gains or not at all. Whilst the outcome of the military conflict is in the balance, the fact its even in the balance should be an indication that the West should redouble its efforts, not open a door.
Russia's military losses are bad. If the larger end of the claims are anywhere near reality, they are very bad. The Russian military cannot sustain those losses without having to pull fresh formations in, but to do that they may have to call up more reservists rather than call on standing military units because there is only so much left of those. Calling up substantive reservists has its own problems.
On the battlefield there are indications the Ukrainians have cut off some advance Russian elements on the left flank of Kyiv via an attack from the west. For the first time there is the possibility of a choke being established. If they pull it off it will represent the first sizeable defeat for Russian forces where they are ceding land.
The South East by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is another major Russian target and the Ukrainians currently don't seem yet able to halt or reverse the gains. Russia is putting a lot of effort in here and has the better cards to play. Recognition of occupied areas here as Russian territory is considered to be one of the things Putin will look for to claim success in any peace deal. Somewhere along that Azov coast the Ukrainians need to push the Russians out. If they somehow can, Putin loses another bargaining chip and he hasn't got too many right now, hence why he will continue to pursue the conflict.
I mentioned a lot of days back that, despite the talk, the idea of direct Western intervention of some kind isn't as off the table as it looks and that some capitals had already recognised this. A humanitarian situation too severe to ignore is a possibility as is a Russian escalation that is seen as outside the Ukraine borders.
I'm a bit of of a cynic but my view is that the Ukrainians might not be too bothered at relieving Mariupol. As well as draining Russian forces in taking the city and / or preventing redeployment, it would also (1) largely "solve" the issue of the Azov units, which are mainly based there and (2) help Ukraine when it comes to Western public opinion. Given Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian units in the city and / or the reported low morale of the Russian forces, it would not be impossible to relieve it.
That seems unduly cynical to me. It's just not how Ukraine has conducted the war. The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there. And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Russian military comms are having problems because some of the divisional and corps level secure kit doesn't work very well and as I posted a while back, there are reports someone is heavily disrupting battlefield comms. The Russians have their suspicions about who but its a short list.
These comms issues are put forward one of the reasons why a such a number of senior officers have been killed. they have been forced to go to the front lines to get a picture of what is going on and direct their troops because the comms have been a mess.
The other aspect - which I hadn’t fully appreciated - is the Russians don’t devolved battlefield autonomy to their junior commanders. They aren’t trained to take the initiative. Which means that unless the senior officers go forward then nothing happens
Their rations even look fucking grim to me and I went to boarding school in Yorkshire.
The state of that catering vehicle captured by Ukraine forces last week reminded me of my own school kitchens.
The most interesting thing is that although @MaxPB are I are fairly different politically we both agree the Tories are not for the young. This gives you an insight into why this age group are not voting Tory.
It doesn’t matter but it is interesting. If we all voted we would do damage.
You assume that those that don't vote share your views.
The EU referendum should have taught you not to think like that.
The average person under 30 probably shares my views if you look at polling. Above 30, no idea.
"Boris Johnson "desperate" to go to Ukraine - senior Conservative
The Tory chairman, Oliver Dowden, has claimed British prime minister Boris Johnson is “desperate to go to Ukraine” and has a “real emotional connection” with the Ukrainian people."
Boris being Boris, I suppose. There is no situation so tragic that the man will not make it about him and his self-promotion.
In fairness it is Churchillian - Churchill wanted to be on the beaches at D-Day and it took a direct order from the King to stop him. Both are/were terrible ideas....
Was it a direct order?
I thought it was a case of Eisenhower telling King George VI about Churchill's plans to be in Normandy on D-Day and the King telling Churchill that if Churchill went to Normandy on D-Day then so would he (so to stop Churchill going.)
That led to Churchill having the same fears as Eisenhower, one lucky German attack and the King dies on D-Day then no matter how much of a success D-Day was the death of the King/Churchill would overshadow the invasion and possibly a morale destroying event which could impact the outcome of the war, so Churchill decided not go.
The leaders of Poland, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic visited Lviv last week.
I'm not sure any was quite so crass as to claim a 'real emotional connection' with the entire Ukraine population.
The most interesting thing is that although @MaxPB are I are fairly different politically we both agree the Tories are not for the young. This gives you an insight into why this age group are not voting Tory.
It doesn’t matter but it is interesting. If we all voted we would do damage.
You assume that those that don't vote share your views.
The EU referendum should have taught you not to think like that.
Presumably the implication here is that the non-voters in the under 30 bracket would only vote Tory if they could be bothered? Why would they do that?
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
Can get a 2 bed terrace round here starting at £45k. £60k and it'll be slap bang done up nice too.
The most interesting thing is that although @MaxPB are I are fairly different politically we both agree the Tories are not for the young. This gives you an insight into why this age group are not voting Tory.
It doesn’t matter but it is interesting. If we all voted we would do damage.
You assume that those that don't vote share your views.
The EU referendum should have taught you not to think like that.
Presumably the implication here is that the non-voters in the under 30 bracket would only vote Tory if they could be bothered? Why would they do that?
I did not say that. Your comment implied that non-voting youngsters hold similar views to voting youngsters. That is a fatal error to make.
Non-voters don't count because, and this isn't controversial, they don't vote.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Only if they bump off their parents. Average age when both your parents are dead is well into your 60s. I did the maths for you on this before using the ONS data.
Otherwise don't disagree much with the post.
but most kids of well off parents get money before parents death - either in drip feed or ways to get around paying care fees etc. Its not a meritocracy when the prime factor in how well off a generation is is not how much THEY EARN but how much they are given by parents
Not sure that is true especially for those not well off in the south, but that is not the point l was making anyway. Just pointing out you don't inherit generally in 40s and 50s. Nothing else.
@HYUFD to have children you have to survive till about 30 (in my case 41). So life expectancy of parents is greater than from birth. Also to inherit both parents have to die so you have to work out the life expectancy of of the older of 2 people which again is larger. That figure is well into the 90s (in my case 96 and still going strong). Subtract 30 from that figure and you get 60+
I accept you will say parents will help children before they die. That may or may not be true. Less so for those in the south who aren't wealthy.
The more the Tories rule, the more people need to take into account the standard financial advice - don't give away money to your children if you might need it for your care. Also because the council might regard it as deliberate shedding of resources in order to claim public support for your care. Ditto IHT and GROB as far as HMRC is concerned.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
Can get a 2 bed terrace round here starting at £45k. £60k and it'll be slap bang done up nice too.
The most interesting thing is that although @MaxPB are I are fairly different politically we both agree the Tories are not for the young. This gives you an insight into why this age group are not voting Tory.
It doesn’t matter but it is interesting. If we all voted we would do damage.
You assume that those that don't vote share your views.
The EU referendum should have taught you not to think like that.
Presumably the implication here is that the non-voters in the under 30 bracket would only vote Tory if they could be bothered? Why would they do that?
I did not say that. Your comment implied that non-voting youngsters hold similar views to voting youngsters. That is a fatal error to make.
Non-voters don't count because, and this isn't controversial, they don't vote.
The polling is quite clear that non-voting youngsters are not inclined to vote Tory though, unless you have anything to counter?
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
One of the interesting things about moving to New York is trying to get my head around housing costs.
Manhattan is of course grossly expensive and more than comparable with London Zones 1 & 2.
But you don’t need to go out soooo much before prices drop away rapidly. For example, in Montclair, New Jersey - a prosperous and vaguely arty commuter town, 20 miles outside Manhattan - you can get a very nice 2000 or 3000 sq ft house for circa £500k.
Try doing that in Tunbridge Wells.
Americans earn more, are taxed less, and have lower housing (and energy) costs.
I imagine the NJ zipcode has a big impact on that. Also, direct comparisons on house sizes aren't really fair, as US homes in the suburbs are just bigger.
Also, it depends which way you go from London. But, say Welwyn Garden City, 25 miles from central London. Here is quick random search, you can get a decent house for £500k.
I imagine if you go for say Sussex rather than Surrey, is a bit like NJ vs NY state.
Upstate NY is where is most surprising. Cold Spring type way is really very very nice and properties aren't crazy money and it is still easy to get into the city.
That house is pokey as hell, glazed with UVC, and you can barely swing a cat in the back garden.
It kind of proves my point.
You can get this - looks around 3000 sq ft - for literally less than the one you showed me.
The two houses posted illustrate @Gardenwalker point to a comical degree. The lot size of the US house is over 9000 sq feet ! The obsession in the UK with numbers of bedrooms rather than floor area is probably to blame. Though property tax on the US house is almost 20k a year
Funny how people ignore eye-wateringly high property taxes in at least some states when explaining why they cannot be raised here.
There has been talk for some time about Putin's off ramps over Ukraine, his failure to have any in the run up to this and what the possible off ramps are now.
The collective West needs to give Putin no such route. He either creates it through military gains or not at all. Whilst the outcome of the military conflict is in the balance, the fact its even in the balance should be an indication that the West should redouble its efforts, not open a door.
Russia's military losses are bad. If the larger end of the claims are anywhere near reality, they are very bad. The Russian military cannot sustain those losses without having to pull fresh formations in, but to do that they may have to call up more reservists rather than call on standing military units because there is only so much left of those. Calling up substantive reservists has its own problems.
On the battlefield there are indications the Ukrainians have cut off some advance Russian elements on the left flank of Kyiv via an attack from the west. For the first time there is the possibility of a choke being established. If they pull it off it will represent the first sizeable defeat for Russian forces where they are ceding land.
The South East by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is another major Russian target and the Ukrainians currently don't seem yet able to halt or reverse the gains. Russia is putting a lot of effort in here and has the better cards to play. Recognition of occupied areas here as Russian territory is considered to be one of the things Putin will look for to claim success in any peace deal. Somewhere along that Azov coast the Ukrainians need to push the Russians out. If they somehow can, Putin loses another bargaining chip and he hasn't got too many right now, hence why he will continue to pursue the conflict.
I mentioned a lot of days back that, despite the talk, the idea of direct Western intervention of some kind isn't as off the table as it looks and that some capitals had already recognised this. A humanitarian situation too severe to ignore is a possibility as is a Russian escalation that is seen as outside the Ukraine borders.
I'm a bit of of a cynic but my view is that the Ukrainians might not be too bothered at relieving Mariupol. As well as draining Russian forces in taking the city and / or preventing redeployment, it would also (1) largely "solve" the issue of the Azov units, which are mainly based there and (2) help Ukraine when it comes to Western public opinion. Given Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian units in the city and / or the reported low morale of the Russian forces, it would not be impossible to relieve it.
That seems unduly cynical to me. It's just not how Ukraine has conducted the war. The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there. And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
Not saying he won't. But. Part of his miscalculation seemed to be that Ukrainians and Russians are "one people". Hence he's deporting prisoners to Siberia. Summat he notably didn't do in Syria. Using chemicals may not be beyond the pale for him, but for his generals/troops? I notice there has been film of dispersing protests by firing in the air. Then tear gas. Then stun grenades. I am not aware of live fire. Suggests there is a level at least thus far which hasn't been crossed.
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
This excerpt jumped out at me:
"Local social media imagery depicted new conscripts equipped with the Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle—which has not been produced since 1973 and was first produced in 1891."
I can't believe that the Russians would have run out of Kalashnikovs, so what do we make of this? Seems to be a particularly cruel and nihilistic move.
And much of their transport relies on the wheel, technology first produced in 2000 BC. Guns last forever if you keep the rust away, and there's nothing obsolete about a bolt action. So what is the problem?
I don't think you can blame a non-specialist like myself from drawing the conclusion that these were obsolete weapons, as that seems to be the impression the statement was intended to convey. Else why does it matter that the rifle was first produced in 1891?
Thanks to Dura Ace for providing me with the benefit of his knowledge.
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Hear hear. I'm not as old as he is but I'm getting to feel unfairly well treated. Particularly when I look at students over the last decade or so. Or the forthcoming NI rise.
Morning, OKC: lovely sunny morning here, no sharp radiation frost for a change.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Thank you Horse. I've no problem with being described as 'older'; I've got to the stage in life where the barmaid in the pub offers to carry my pint to where I'm going to be sitting
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
Can get a 2 bed terrace round here starting at £45k. £60k and it'll be slap bang done up nice too.
And is it worth that much?
It's worth what folk will pay. New build detached is still five figures. Levelling up is about house prices too.
"Corsican nationalist dies after assault in French prison
The Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna, who was assaulted earlier this month in prison in an attack that sparked rioting on the French Mediterranean island, has died, his family announced on Monday."
"Corsican nationalist dies after assault in French prison
The Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna, who was assaulted earlier this month in prison in an attack that sparked rioting on the French Mediterranean island, has died, his family announced on Monday."
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
I've heard quite a bit about Nestlé and their less than celebrated decision to continue business in Russia. I've heard rather less about what I presume is ultimately Macron's decision to do this -
Renault resumes car production in Moscow as rivals cut ties with Russia
The French carmaker Renault has resumed manufacturing in its plants in Moscow, bucking the trend of many other large global companies that have cut ties with Russia over its war on Ukraine.
Renault had suspended production at the plant last month, citing logistical problems after the invasion of Ukraine on Vladimir Putin’s orders. However, Renault’s decision to restart manufacturing has the backing of the French government, which is its main shareholder, according to sources cited by Reuters.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
There has been talk for some time about Putin's off ramps over Ukraine, his failure to have any in the run up to this and what the possible off ramps are now.
The collective West needs to give Putin no such route. He either creates it through military gains or not at all. Whilst the outcome of the military conflict is in the balance, the fact its even in the balance should be an indication that the West should redouble its efforts, not open a door.
Russia's military losses are bad. If the larger end of the claims are anywhere near reality, they are very bad. The Russian military cannot sustain those losses without having to pull fresh formations in, but to do that they may have to call up more reservists rather than call on standing military units because there is only so much left of those. Calling up substantive reservists has its own problems.
On the battlefield there are indications the Ukrainians have cut off some advance Russian elements on the left flank of Kyiv via an attack from the west. For the first time there is the possibility of a choke being established. If they pull it off it will represent the first sizeable defeat for Russian forces where they are ceding land.
The South East by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is another major Russian target and the Ukrainians currently don't seem yet able to halt or reverse the gains. Russia is putting a lot of effort in here and has the better cards to play. Recognition of occupied areas here as Russian territory is considered to be one of the things Putin will look for to claim success in any peace deal. Somewhere along that Azov coast the Ukrainians need to push the Russians out. If they somehow can, Putin loses another bargaining chip and he hasn't got too many right now, hence why he will continue to pursue the conflict.
I mentioned a lot of days back that, despite the talk, the idea of direct Western intervention of some kind isn't as off the table as it looks and that some capitals had already recognised this. A humanitarian situation too severe to ignore is a possibility as is a Russian escalation that is seen as outside the Ukraine borders.
I'm a bit of of a cynic but my view is that the Ukrainians might not be too bothered at relieving Mariupol. As well as draining Russian forces in taking the city and / or preventing redeployment, it would also (1) largely "solve" the issue of the Azov units, which are mainly based there and (2) help Ukraine when it comes to Western public opinion. Given Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian units in the city and / or the reported low morale of the Russian forces, it would not be impossible to relieve it.
That seems unduly cynical to me. It's just not how Ukraine has conducted the war. The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there. And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
Not saying he won't. But. Part of his miscalculation seemed to be that Ukrainians and Russians are "one people". Hence he's deporting prisoners to Siberia. Summat he notably didn't do in Syria. Using chemicals may not be beyond the pale for him, but for his generals/troops? I notice there has been film of dispersing protests by firing in the air. Then tear gas. Then stun grenades. I am not aware of live fire. Suggests there is a level at least thus far which hasn't been crossed.
According to the Wikipedia page on Ukrainian history, at one point quite a lot of Ukrainians voluntarily moved/emigrated to East Siberia.
But one thing i noticed form todays report. the 2 breakaway pro Russia 'states in the Dombas have now increased the upper age for conscription from 55 to 65. yes they are now looking at men in there 60s to fill there ranks.
There shortage in manpower must be massive for that to seem sensible!
This excerpt jumped out at me:
"Local social media imagery depicted new conscripts equipped with the Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle—which has not been produced since 1973 and was first produced in 1891."
I can't believe that the Russians would have run out of Kalashnikovs, so what do we make of this? Seems to be a particularly cruel and nihilistic move.
And much of their transport relies on the wheel, technology first produced in 2000 BC. Guns last forever if you keep the rust away, and there's nothing obsolete about a bolt action. So what is the problem?
I don't think you can blame a non-specialist like myself from drawing the conclusion that these were obsolete weapons, as that seems to be the impression the statement was intended to convey. Else why does it matter that the rifle was first produced in 1891?
Thanks to Dura Ace for providing me with the benefit of his knowledge.
Sorry not getting at you, getting at the report itself which is undoubtedly trying to suggest that.
I have never used an automatic rifle but I imagine you can't have an auto bolt action so perhaps the complaint is these are single-shot weapons. Then again an AR is probably the last thing you'd want in the hands of a new conscript anyway.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
So the solution is, move away from where all my friends are, take a pay cut and still not be able to buy a house. Fantastic!
Having lived in Woking all my life, I'm quite philosophical about the difficulty of buying where I'm from. Yes, it is rubbish and I've banged on and on about interest rates. But, having stayed at home, I have a decent cushion should things get really bad. Swings and roundabouts and all that.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
I bought my first flat in Archway (north of the bridge) and it cost more than that in 1987!
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
Can get a 2 bed terrace round here starting at £45k. £60k and it'll be slap bang done up nice too.
And is it worth that much?
It's worth what folk will pay. New build detached is still five figures. Levelling up is about house prices too.
Price and value are not the same.
People wondered where all the QE went and why it didn’t affect CPI. We had massive inflation - it was just asset price inflation that made life a lot harder for a generation.
As a society we would be better with cheaper housing all round
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
It's where the good jobs are, especially for larger companies.
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
It's where the good jobs are, especially for larger companies.
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Remember, Malc, people have having to live in London so that we don’t have to. They’re sacrificing countryside, fresh air and freedom for the rest of us! 😉
OMG! I've just "liked" three of @MaxPB 's posts. Does this make me a rabid Johnsonian Conservative or has Max been reading Das Kapital again?
I’m a centre lefty but I agree with Max on this stuff.
The reason is, an economy actually needs the opportunity to produce something for there to be wealth to be distributed.
The government wants to tax working people into the dust to please millions of doddering greedies.
The worst part is that it feels as though the old people are positively gleeful at the impoverishment of younger generations, the baby boomer generation is truly the most selfish to exist. They are all about themselves and how they can monopolise as much wealth as possible and keep it locked away while getting young generations to pay for nurses to wipe their arses for years because they're too scared to die.
The just don’t get it. And they don’t care. That’s why I get so angry that I call them doddering greedies etc.
Occasionally I “joke” about compulsory euthanasia.
I think they do get it. I think they realise young people are getting screwed with higher uni fees, unaffordable housing, unaffordable living costs outside of housing. They still don't care. I get a sense they want to encourage more screwing of young people because we're all lazy wasters who have never done a hard day's work in our lives etc... while they were all slaving away earning no money but also magically able to buy houses in their 20s.
90% of over 60s did not go to university. North of Watford housing is still pretty affordable, south of Watford those in their 40s and 50s will inherit more than any generation before.
Energy bills and council tax apply to the old as much as the young
Housing everywhere is not really affordable for young people any more. In London I pay half my post-tax salary to rent a small room in a flat with two other people. If I moved back home three hours from London... I'd still be paying half my post-tax salary on rent, because I'd get paid much less (and then I'd get completely fucked on buying, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car because there's no reliable public transport).
But then again I did buy a sandwich from Pret last month so it's probably my fault.
This is where all the QE went…
Whine , whinge , poor me, greedy Tories in the making. Any idiot who stays in a shoebox in London gets all they deserve.
Nah house prices everywhere are too high.
Can get a 2 bed terrace round here starting at £45k. £60k and it'll be slap bang done up nice too.
And is it worth that much?
It's worth what folk will pay. New build detached is still five figures. Levelling up is about house prices too.
Price and value are not the same.
People wondered where all the QE went and why it didn’t affect CPI. We had massive inflation - it was just asset price inflation that made life a lot harder for a generation.
As a society we would be better with cheaper housing all round
The sale of Council Housing is coming back to bite us!
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
It's where the good jobs are, especially for larger companies.
But they're leaving their friends and family?
All we care about is money, the Tories would be proud
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
I bought my first flat in Archway (north of the bridge) and it cost more than that in 1987!
North of the bridge is Highgate borders! We were on St John’s Way.
Interesting thread - not informed enough to know if the hypothesis is correct:
The narrative sounds simple: sanctions will crash the Ruble, isolate Russian economy, create massive inflation and hopefully Russia will cave. But the chart for EUR vs RUB stubbornly disagrees… What’s happening here? Are sanctions not working? Why? Important thread (I think)
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Thank you Horse. I've no problem with being described as 'older'; I've got to the stage in life where the barmaid in the pub offers to carry my pint to where I'm going to be sitting
I went to outpatients for my broken legs on Thurs. I can weight bear on one leg now so I am using a Zimmer frame (several decades before I expected) I decided to give it a go and walk rather than use a wheelchair. It was several hundred metres and I was knackered using one leg often having to stop to rest.
Anyway I was bowled over by the number of offers of help I received. All gratefully declined. People generally aren't too bad.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Thank you Horse. I've no problem with being described as 'older'; I've got to the stage in life where the barmaid in the pub offers to carry my pint to where I'm going to be sitting
I went to outpatients for my broken legs on Thurs. I can weight bear on one leg now so I am using a Zimmer frame (several decades before I expected) I decided to give it a go and walk rather than use a wheelchair. It was several hundred metres and I was knackered using one leg often having to stop to rest.
Anyway I was bowled over by the number of offers of help I received. All gratefully declined. People generally aren't too bad.
They say Londoners are rude but I always see somebody offering to help somebody move a buggy up the stairs
There has been talk for some time about Putin's off ramps over Ukraine, his failure to have any in the run up to this and what the possible off ramps are now.
The collective West needs to give Putin no such route. He either creates it through military gains or not at all. Whilst the outcome of the military conflict is in the balance, the fact its even in the balance should be an indication that the West should redouble its efforts, not open a door.
Russia's military losses are bad. If the larger end of the claims are anywhere near reality, they are very bad. The Russian military cannot sustain those losses without having to pull fresh formations in, but to do that they may have to call up more reservists rather than call on standing military units because there is only so much left of those. Calling up substantive reservists has its own problems.
On the battlefield there are indications the Ukrainians have cut off some advance Russian elements on the left flank of Kyiv via an attack from the west. For the first time there is the possibility of a choke being established. If they pull it off it will represent the first sizeable defeat for Russian forces where they are ceding land.
The South East by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is another major Russian target and the Ukrainians currently don't seem yet able to halt or reverse the gains. Russia is putting a lot of effort in here and has the better cards to play. Recognition of occupied areas here as Russian territory is considered to be one of the things Putin will look for to claim success in any peace deal. Somewhere along that Azov coast the Ukrainians need to push the Russians out. If they somehow can, Putin loses another bargaining chip and he hasn't got too many right now, hence why he will continue to pursue the conflict.
I mentioned a lot of days back that, despite the talk, the idea of direct Western intervention of some kind isn't as off the table as it looks and that some capitals had already recognised this. A humanitarian situation too severe to ignore is a possibility as is a Russian escalation that is seen as outside the Ukraine borders.
I'm a bit of of a cynic but my view is that the Ukrainians might not be too bothered at relieving Mariupol. As well as draining Russian forces in taking the city and / or preventing redeployment, it would also (1) largely "solve" the issue of the Azov units, which are mainly based there and (2) help Ukraine when it comes to Western public opinion. Given Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian units in the city and / or the reported low morale of the Russian forces, it would not be impossible to relieve it.
That seems unduly cynical to me. It's just not how Ukraine has conducted the war. The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there. And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
Not saying he won't. But. Part of his miscalculation seemed to be that Ukrainians and Russians are "one people". Hence he's deporting prisoners to Siberia. Summat he notably didn't do in Syria. Using chemicals may not be beyond the pale for him, but for his generals/troops? I notice there has been film of dispersing protests by firing in the air. Then tear gas. Then stun grenades. I am not aware of live fire. Suggests there is a level at least thus far which hasn't been crossed.
Live fire against protestor has happened in Kherson, I think.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
I bought my first flat in Archway (north of the bridge) and it cost more than that in 1987!
North of the bridge is Highgate borders! We were on St John’s Way.
Good morning everyone. Bright again here, although the residents of Cole Towers are beset with health niggles. Nothing very serious, just normal old age. And one doesn't recover from even minor niggles as quickly.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
One of the few older (I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this OKC) folks here with any level of compassion for the younger generation.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Thank you Horse. I've no problem with being described as 'older'; I've got to the stage in life where the barmaid in the pub offers to carry my pint to where I'm going to be sitting
I went to outpatients for my broken legs on Thurs. I can weight bear on one leg now so I am using a Zimmer frame (several decades before I expected) I decided to give it a go and walk rather than use a wheelchair. It was several hundred metres and I was knackered using one leg often having to stop to rest.
Anyway I was bowled over by the number of offers of help I received. All gratefully declined. People generally aren't too bad.
You don't want to go being bowled over, with your legs and all
The Ukrainians are now claiming that the Russians have 3 days of food, fuel and amunition left. I suspect that the picture will be far from uniform, there is no evidence that they are running out of artillary shells, for example, but if there is any truth in that then units of the Russian army will start to collapse. Last night the Ukrainians claim to have recaptured a town 60km from Kyiv and the Russians are making more use of their air power despite having failed to suppress anti aircraft systems. That looks like desperation to me.
My guess is that we are indeed days away from a major Russian collapse on a significant front. That does not mean that the war will be over or anything but the dynamic of Russian advances will change to Russian consolidation and retreat. The Ukrainians don't seem that bothered by the fact that the peace talks are going anywhere, they think that they are winning.
There has been talk for some time about Putin's off ramps over Ukraine, his failure to have any in the run up to this and what the possible off ramps are now.
The collective West needs to give Putin no such route. He either creates it through military gains or not at all. Whilst the outcome of the military conflict is in the balance, the fact its even in the balance should be an indication that the West should redouble its efforts, not open a door.
Russia's military losses are bad. If the larger end of the claims are anywhere near reality, they are very bad. The Russian military cannot sustain those losses without having to pull fresh formations in, but to do that they may have to call up more reservists rather than call on standing military units because there is only so much left of those. Calling up substantive reservists has its own problems.
On the battlefield there are indications the Ukrainians have cut off some advance Russian elements on the left flank of Kyiv via an attack from the west. For the first time there is the possibility of a choke being established. If they pull it off it will represent the first sizeable defeat for Russian forces where they are ceding land.
The South East by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is another major Russian target and the Ukrainians currently don't seem yet able to halt or reverse the gains. Russia is putting a lot of effort in here and has the better cards to play. Recognition of occupied areas here as Russian territory is considered to be one of the things Putin will look for to claim success in any peace deal. Somewhere along that Azov coast the Ukrainians need to push the Russians out. If they somehow can, Putin loses another bargaining chip and he hasn't got too many right now, hence why he will continue to pursue the conflict.
I mentioned a lot of days back that, despite the talk, the idea of direct Western intervention of some kind isn't as off the table as it looks and that some capitals had already recognised this. A humanitarian situation too severe to ignore is a possibility as is a Russian escalation that is seen as outside the Ukraine borders.
I'm a bit of of a cynic but my view is that the Ukrainians might not be too bothered at relieving Mariupol. As well as draining Russian forces in taking the city and / or preventing redeployment, it would also (1) largely "solve" the issue of the Azov units, which are mainly based there and (2) help Ukraine when it comes to Western public opinion. Given Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian units in the city and / or the reported low morale of the Russian forces, it would not be impossible to relieve it.
That seems unduly cynical to me. It's just not how Ukraine has conducted the war. The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there. And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
Not saying he won't. But. Part of his miscalculation seemed to be that Ukrainians and Russians are "one people". Hence he's deporting prisoners to Siberia. Summat he notably didn't do in Syria. Using chemicals may not be beyond the pale for him, but for his generals/troops? I notice there has been film of dispersing protests by firing in the air. Then tear gas. Then stun grenades. I am not aware of live fire. Suggests there is a level at least thus far which hasn't been crossed.
Live fire against protestor has happened in Kherson, I think.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
We bought our first place in Archway, London N19 in 1990: a two bedroom garden flat five minutes from the tube station. It cost £60,000. Our combined income as a probationer primary school teacher and junior copy editor was around £30,000. Fast forward 32 years and the flat would now cost well in excess of £500,000 and the combined salaries would, at best, be around £60,000. And therein lies the problem.
I bought my first flat in Archway (north of the bridge) and it cost more than that in 1987!
King Cole, lack of construction matters more, I'd say.
Round here there's no lack of construction. Actually, I'd be interested, because I genuinely don't know, how the economics of house-building work. How much/what proportion is land, and are materials more expensive in the South East than elsewhere. Are the resultant house-prices simply what the market will bear?
@CorrectHorseBattery - What's curious, is that plenty of people choose to leave their friends and family to go to London. Presumably you agree with me that that is nuts!
It's where the good jobs are, especially for larger companies.
But they're leaving their friends and family?
Travel happens. So you can still see your friends. And you can make new ones. And since I have been an adult I have seen no need to live anywhere near my family.
King Cole, lack of construction matters more, I'd say.
Round here there's no lack of construction. Actually, I'd be interested, because I genuinely don't know, how the economics of house-building work. How much/what proportion is land, and are materials more expensive in the South East than elsewhere. Are the resultant house-prices simply what the market will bear?
My sister had an extension built in 2020. She had some guys from Swansea do the work (relatives of relatives, that kind of thing), and they purchased materials in Wales and it made quite a big difference.
Comments
Otherwise don't disagree much with the post.
(compared with around 11% in the UK).
The downside to the USA is that it's a terrible place to be poor.
He certainly doesn't have the kind of resources Stalin has. The Soviets could take 1.2 m casualties, while still winning the battle for the West Bank of the Dneiper.
Macron remains well ahead of his pre-Ukraine levels of 24-25% first round support. A correction was always likely but Macron seems to be suffering from the effect of high pump prices and push-back to his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 2/
Despite their Putin-fellow-travelling baggage, Marine Le Pen (up to 20% in the Elabe poll) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (up to 15%) are rising on cost of living concerns. Zemmour and Pécresse still floundering 3/
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1506172759013011456?s=20&t=Ileldd4uQI29ASxl9bWOUA
Stuff coming out re Australian PM Mr Morrison in polling and focus groups. I was struck by this, given the religious fervour with which PBTories adore calling Mr Johnson 'Boris' as if he were their lover:
'Despite such virulent shortcomings we should remain cautious about concluding that the PM is sunk. The “ScoMo” brand that he lovingly created before the 2019 election still delivers among those sections of the electorate who view politics from the corner of their eye.
A real tell in focus groups that I have observed is whether the participant refers to Morrison as ScoMo. Where they do the brand provides a protective shield around him; while they recognise his missteps, they are far more prepared to forgive him. After all, “you can’t blame ScoMo for the pandemic”.'
And so on.
I wouldn’t call boil in the bag sausage in a canteen anything like food
@HYUFD to have children you have to survive till about 30 (in my case 41). So life expectancy of parents is greater than from birth. Also to inherit both parents have to die so you have to work out the life expectancy of of the older of 2 people which again is larger. That figure is well into the 90s (in my case 96 and still going strong). Subtract 30 from that figure and you get 60+
I accept you will say parents will help children before they die. That may or may not be true. Less so for those in the south who aren't wealthy.
I thought it was a case of Eisenhower telling King George VI about Churchill's plans to be in Normandy on D-Day and the King telling Churchill that if Churchill went to Normandy on D-Day then so would he (so to stop Churchill going.)
That led to Churchill having the same fears as Eisenhower, one lucky German attack and the King dies on D-Day then no matter how much of a success D-Day was the death of the King/Churchill would overshadow the invasion and possibly a morale destroying event which could impact the outcome of the war, so Churchill decided not go.
And if you have enough chucking them that you don't mind die as they do, Zulu spears are still effective. Not what you want on the social media feed though.
Basically because rents/mortgages have increased far faster than wages. That's pretty much it.
Do you think we should have paid for an 8.3% increase in the state pension, as the triple lock would have dictated? Or are you happy with 3.1% increase (CPI to September 21)?
The reality is that they have no force of size anywhere near to Mariupol that might attempt such a thing. And no means of getting one there.
And their armed forces are fully engaged across the country, with only a few localised successes in pushing back the Russians.
Until the Russians suffer comprehensive defeat elsewhere (eg around Mikolayiv), it's not a possibility.
A genuine fear is that Putin uses chemical weapons in Mariupol, as he did in Syria.
I'm not sure any was quite so crass as to claim a 'real emotional connection' with the entire Ukraine population.
Money wise we're atypical; both my (living) children are better off than we were in our mid fifties ...... or at least their life-styles suggest they are. And our adult grandchildren seem 'comfortable' too.
So, to answer Mr (?) Eabhal up thread; I'm personally not too worried about the rise in cost of living, I'd rather see some encouragement for 20/30 year olds.
Non-voters don't count because, and this isn't controversial, they don't vote.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/118827677#/?channel=RES_BUY
2 bed flat, £145,000.
Looks quite nice, though small bedrooms.
Hope you are keeping well OKC.
Hence he's deporting prisoners to Siberia. Summat he notably didn't do in Syria. Using chemicals may not be beyond the pale for him, but for his generals/troops?
I notice there has been film of dispersing protests by firing in the air. Then tear gas. Then stun grenades. I am not aware of live fire.
Suggests there is a level at least thus far which hasn't been crossed.
Thanks to Dura Ace for providing me with the benefit of his knowledge.
Morning, OKC: lovely sunny morning here, no sharp radiation frost for a change.
And it isn't that far to London:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C02345/2022-03-22/detailed
The Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna, who was assaulted earlier this month in prison in an attack that sparked rioting on the French Mediterranean island, has died, his family announced on Monday."
https://www.thelocal.com/20220322/corsican-nationalist-dies-after-assault-in-french-prison/
Renault resumes car production in Moscow as rivals cut ties with Russia
The French carmaker Renault has resumed manufacturing in its plants in Moscow, bucking the trend of many other large global companies that have cut ties with Russia over its war on Ukraine.
Renault had suspended production at the plant last month, citing logistical problems after the invasion of Ukraine on Vladimir Putin’s orders. However, Renault’s decision to restart manufacturing has the backing of the French government, which is its main shareholder, according to sources cited by Reuters.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/21/renault-moscow-russia-nestle
This is a truck logistics history🧵that will point back to my "Russian truck fleet is junk in 6-to-8 weeks from operational attrition" startment.
These KamAZ trucks are the newest generation available to Russia.
kamazexport.com
1/
https://twitter.com/trenttelenko/status/1506006447116718085?s=21
I have never used an automatic rifle but I imagine you can't have an auto bolt action so perhaps the complaint is these are single-shot weapons. Then again an AR is probably the last thing you'd want in the hands of a new conscript anyway.
People wondered where all the QE went and why it didn’t affect CPI. We had massive inflation - it was just asset price inflation that made life a lot harder for a generation.
As a society we would be better with cheaper housing all round
King Cole, lack of construction matters more, I'd say.
The narrative sounds simple: sanctions will crash the Ruble, isolate Russian economy, create massive inflation and hopefully Russia will cave.
But the chart for EUR vs RUB stubbornly disagrees… What’s happening here? Are sanctions not working? Why?
Important thread (I think)
https://twitter.com/jeuasommenulle/status/1505962132676001796
Anyway I was bowled over by the number of offers of help I received. All gratefully declined. People generally aren't too bad.
https://tinyurl.com/2p92vfdh
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1506113379118764033
My guess is that we are indeed days away from a major Russian collapse on a significant front. That does not mean that the war will be over or anything but the dynamic of Russian advances will change to Russian consolidation and retreat. The Ukrainians don't seem that bothered by the fact that the peace talks are going anywhere, they think that they are winning.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121347737#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120028502#/?channel=RES_BUY
Are the resultant house-prices simply what the market will bear?
Houses pop up in London constantly, it's that they're bought by Chinese, Russian and Arabs and/or banked until the market goes up.
It's utterly absurd.